


The World Belongs to You at Nightfall

by nocturneblack



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, F/M, Minor Character(s), Post-Canon, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-06 21:33:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8770111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nocturneblack/pseuds/nocturneblack
Summary: She was thinking how foreign it would be, to have a man sleeping beside her in her bed every night. Just as her mind turned to other things husbands and wives did in bed she saw him, just inside one of the stables, putting a shoe on one of the horses.Or, five times Arya and Gendry share a bed.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This story features a fifteen year old Arya discovering/expressing sexual tensions and feelings for Gendry. I feel like fifteen isn't really underage in this context/universe, but the warning is there.

**i.**

It was odd to her that she should be thinking of marriage when she sees him for the first time in over four years.

The line of thinking always started with the same thought: _What if father had not been killed?_

At five and ten she figured she would at least be betrothed, if not married, by this point. Her father had always told her he would let her choose. That was the thought in her head as she guided her horse closer to the stable that stood beside the little inn. Though her horse's hooves crunched through a fresh layer of snow, the winds were not as sharp as they had been on the ship, and the steadily increasing temperature told Arya that winter was slowly leaving Westeros. She figured as she traveled farther north she would soon be reminded of the way the air and wind felt when she was a child.

She was thinking how foreign it would be, to have a man sleeping beside her in her bed every night. Just as her mind turned to the other things husbands and wives did in bed she saw him, just inside one of the stables, putting a shoe on one of the horses.

For a brief moment, before the shock really hit her, her mind conjured the image of _him_ in her bed, rolling over and wrapping his arms around her.

The image vanished as she fully realized that the man she was looking at was the boy she had once been trapped with in Harrenhal. She pulled on her horse’s reigns, halting him in his tracks. The man hadn’t noticed her yet, and perhaps she could widen her path around the stable and pass by unnoticed. But she knew this was not possible for two equally troubling reasons. For one, he would hear her passing by in the crunching snow, and with it still being light out he would undoubtedly recognize her, just as she had recognized him. And what was he doing in White Harbor, anyway? And second, her horse was now so tired that he would not be able to go any further, and Arya didn’t fancy making camp in the woods while it was still likely that she would freeze to death in the night.

Her decision was made, then. She urged her horse forward, and soon enough the man at the stables acknowledged her. He did not spare her a passing glance, continuing to look down at his work.

“If you’re looking for a room I’m sorry to tell you we’re full for the night.”

“I’ll stay in the stables then, with my horse,” she said, not at all phased by sleeping on hay, and only slightly dreading the stench of horse shit.

He narrowed his eyes as a smirk tugged at his lips.

“A stable is no place for a lady to sleep,” he said. How did he still figure her to be highborn?

He looked up at her then, curious to look at the woman who didn’t mind sleeping with horses. His eyes squinted and then widened as they settled on her face, and he bolted upright. His chest was heaving as he took a step back, nearly backing into the horse’s flank, then took two steps toward her and her horse. His face screwed up in confusion, his eyes rapidly scanning her face.

“Well, I’m not exactly a lady,” she said. “But you know that.”

“Arya?” His voice was low, as if he were afraid to speak her name.

She dismounted her horse, coming to stand before the man she once knew as the bull-headed bastard boy.

She nodded once, the surprise of hearing someone using her real name coursing over her, prickling her skin with goose pimples.

“Gendry,” she said by way of greeting. Her voice was nearly as shaken as his was.

* * *

 

Gendry wasn’t lying about there being no vacant rooms at the inn. So after they had supped with the few remaining members of the disbanded Brotherhood— Harwin and Anguy were the only two Arya knew— Harwin suggested that she sleep in Gendry’s room at the inn, telling Arya that Gendry was “more honorable” than the rest of the lot, and could protect her should something happen. She didn’t bother telling him that she was more than capable of protecting herself, and she didn’t bother telling either of them that she could surely find another inn to stay at in the port town.

That was how she found herself atop _his_ mattress and _his_ furs, with him lying atop a blanket laid out on the floor.  They had spoken very little, aside from him telling her the tale of how the Brotherhood had come to an end, and how he, Harwin, and Anguy ended up so far north. Arya was surprised that he had not asked her where she’d been all this time. She was glad of it. It wasn’t easy to block out the memories of killing, of the blood shed at her hands. Talking about it— talking about anything regarding her time in Essos— would only make it harder to forget.

“This is stupid,” she murmured, her eyes still adjusting to the diminishing light coming from the lone torch on the wall.

“What is?” he asked from below. She rolled to the edge of the mattress so that she could stare down at him. His eyes appeared much darker— nearly black instead of blue— in the dull orange glow.

“You being on the floor,” she hissed.

“It’s fine. I’ve had it much worse, remember?” he asked with a faint smile, and she recalled the two of them sleeping on a cold, hard ground.

“I still could’ve slept in the stables,” she said, wondering why she was nervous being alone with Gendry. It gave her a fluttering feeling, twisting low in her stomach and fraught with unease.

He scoffed, and brought his hands up to cradle the back of his head. She noticed the way the muscles in his arms bulged, and she rolled onto her back, the fluttery feeling more intense than ever.

“As if Harwin would let Arya Stark sleep with the horses.”

She rolled her eyes, and then quickly realized that that was an “old Arya” habit. The thought gave her a sort of muted satisfaction.

“Well he’s letting me sleep with you,” she said, her tone mocking, being unable to resist getting a rise from him. He chuckled.

“You’d have me in the bed with you, then?”

Arya’s mouth went dry at that, as she imagined what it would feel like to have his weight beside her, to feel the warmth radiating from his skin. She felt the faintest throb between her legs at the thought.

She rolled over again to look at him. She could barely make out his face in the dark, but she thought his lips held a slight smile, his eyebrows drawn upward, like he was waiting for her to respond.

“That’s how we used to sleep,” she said, hating that her voice betrayed her.

“That wasn’t in a bed. That was on the ground.”

His face appeared to be serious now.

“That was when I was not yet a man grown, and you were a little girl,” he continued. “You’re still little,” at this she scowled at him, “but you’re a woman now. So it’s far more improper.”

She thought again about what men and women did in beds and her cheeks heated with color. She prayed Gendry could not see it. She rolled onto her back once more.

“That is true. But you and I have never been proper,” she said, imagining him beneath the furs with her, his hands touching bare skin. She pushed the thought away.

Below her he made a noise that sounded like a weary sigh.

“Goodnight, milady,” he said. His use of the title angered her, and she thought to say as much, but she remained quiet, turning on her side and falling asleep after what seemed like a long while.

 

**ii.**

Two days later Arya had herself a travel companion.

“Take Gendry with you,” Harwin had said to her as she loaded her horse with supplies. She had sighed.

“I suppose you’re going to tell  me it’s not safe for a lady to travel alone, even with the war over,” she had said, only slightly exasperated.

“Yes. I am. And…” Harwin had paused, and had looked like he was debating with himself over whether or not he wanted to say the thing he said next.

“If he wants to stay— at Winterfell— if he bends the knee and wishes to serve your family in some way, well, I would hope that you let him, my lady.”

Arya wasn’t sure why Gendry would want to stay in Winterfell, but had said nothing, silently accepting Harwin’s advice.

Arya enjoyed Gendry’s company well enough, but she couldn’t shake that feeling of tension when she was with him. She figured it was because of them being grown now; she wasn’t traveling with a boy, she was traveling with a man. But why did that matter to her? Every time she looked at him she thought about what he’d said about being in bed with her.

After the first day of travel they stopped for the night at a decrepit inn that was even smaller than the one back in White Harbor. They paid for a room and put their horses in the stable.

The room itself was cramped and dingy. The sole straw mattress was barely wide enough to fit two people, and the floorboards appeared to be rotting in places. When Gendry began to unroll his furs on the floor Arya rolled her eyes.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ll catch some unheard of sickness on that floor,” she scolded.

He huffed loudly.

“There’s hardly enough room for me alone on that bed, let alone the two of us,” he said, his voice irritated. She knew he was right but chose to ignore it.

“Don’t be stupid,” she said, an edge to her voice. He could always bring out her temper. “We paid good coin for this room, and you are not sleeping on the floor just because of your stupid honor!”

He glared darkly at her. Nevertheless he moved toward the bed, stripping off his jerkin and shirt as he went, leaving him in just breeches.

She hadn’t anticipated that. The muscles of his chest and abdomen seemed to gleam in the firelight, and Arya felt a heat that had nothing to do with the fire pooling low in her belly. His chest was covered in a layer of black hair that trailed down his stomach until it disappeared at the waist of his breeches.

Arya sat on the bed, dumbstruck, and suddenly remembered that she had packed a long, warm sleeping shirt, and would have to change into it. She sprung up from the bed just before he lay down, and went over to her pack. She found the shirt and clutched it in her hands.

“I—er—” she started, not looking him in the eye. Why was she so uncomfortable? She had changed in front of him before. Granted, she didn’t exactly have breasts then.

“I have to change,” she said resolutely, willing herself to snap out of the strange temper.

Perhaps it was a trick of the firelight, but she swore she saw his cheeks color.

“I’ll turn away then,” he said, and promptly rolled onto his side, his bare back left exposed to her.

Arya quickly tugged off everything but her small clothes, leaving her breaches and tunic in a heap on the floor. She snatched them up, thinking about the rot, and stuffed them in her pack. She slipped the sleeping shirt over her head. It had long sleeves and fell just below her knee.

“Alright,” she said. He rolled back onto his back but kept his eyes on the ceiling, not looking over at her. It bothered her for reasons she didn’t quite understand.

She loosened her hair from the simple plait she had taken to wearing it in ever since it had gotten long enough to plait. She lay down on the lumpy straw mattress, careful not to touch Gendry as she did. He was right about the size of the bed; Arya felt that she was moments away from rolling off, due to both the limited amount of space and her efforts not to touch him. She tried shifting her weight to the right side of her body to keep from falling to the left, but knew she wouldn’t be able to hold the position all night. Huffing in frustration, she finally moved her body closer to his, pressing her arm against his and hoping he wouldn’t say anything. He didn’t, just turned his head to look at her for the first time since she had changed.

She could feel his eyes raking over her, from her head to her feet, and when she looked over to face him she found him holding his head up to look at her legs, bare from the knee down. His eyes traveled upward until they rested on her face, meeting her gaze. This time she was sure his cheeks reddened, but he did not look away from her in shame like he would have at five and ten. He held her gaze for what felt like a long while. Finally, he spoke.

“Aren’t you going to get under the furs?”

She looked down at herself, at her bare legs. She nodded and climbed beneath the furs, her foot brushing his calf as she did.

The skin of his arm felt impossibly warm against her, heat radiating through the thick material of her shirt.

She could feel him staring at her still, so she glanced over at him.

“What is it?” she asked, her voice soft and low. Orange firelight crept along the edge of his large frame, forming a glowing outline around his darkened silhouette.

“I’ve never seen you with long hair,” he said. “You look so very different from when we were children.”

“I’ve been gone a long while.”

“Aye,” he said. “Nearly five years.”

He turned onto his side, and suddenly he was even closer to her.

“Where did you go?” he said, finally asking the question she knew that she would soon be asked again and again.

She took a deep breath and considered telling him everything. She could tell him how she had become an assassin, how she had killed not for justice or even vengeance but in service to a foreign god in a foreign land. She decided against it.

“I was in Essos,” she said, hoping he would accept her vague answer. He seemed to consider it. “How did— how did you survive?”

She turned her head toward him. His face was very close to hers then.

“A girl is entitled to have secrets,” she answered. That seemed to upset him, as he abruptly rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. There was a notable edge to his voice when he asked if anyone had hurt her.

Arya thought of the horrible things done to women and girls in times of war, and the things women and girls often resorted to doing when in need of money and far from home.

“No, no, nothing like that,” she answered quickly and firmly.

She thought she heard him exhale.

He didn’t say anything further, and he fell asleep shortly after, his breathing becoming slow and even. She followed him quickly into sleep. When she woke in the morning their bodies were in the same position, both on their backs with their arms touching, only with his large hand covering hers.

 

**iii.**

She did not realize just how accustomed she had grown to the balmy air of Braavos until they were four days into their journey and the snows were falling heavily. At night the wind blew so fiercely that any patch of exposed skin became numb from the cold in a matter of seconds.

It was on such a night that Arya and Gendry found themselves traveling a stretch of land that was completely barren of any sort of inn or lodgings for the night. Their horses struggled against the wind, trudging through the snow as Arya attempted to remain calm.

“What are we going to do?” she shouted over the roaring wind.

Putting words to their predicament caused a wave of hot panic to wash over her, the near-certainty of death looming at the forefront of her mind. They were caught in a snowstorm, and if they didn’t find shelter they would die in the night.

Gendry moved his horse until it was beside hers, then pointed.

“Do you see that over there? Looks like the opening to a small cave, just past those trees there!” he shouted. Arya could hardly tell if what he was pointing at was the entrance to a cave, but at that point they had no other options.

It was, in fact, the opening to a cave, nearly hidden by the snow. Both Arya and Gendry had to crouch once inside, and there was no room for either of their horses. Tying the horses to a nearby tree and grabbing their bundled furs, Arya prayed to the old gods that the beasts would make it through the night.

The small cave would be just big enough for the two of them to lie down in, and a small amount of light came from the opening. Arya waited for her eyes to adjust to the near darkness.

“Warmer in here at least,” Gendry said from behind her as she spread their furs out on the cold but dry ground. Being out of the wind and snow was enough for Arya to take comfort in, though it was still bitterly cold inside the cave.

As she lay down on the cave floor she recalled memories from a past that felt more distant than it actually was; memories of sleeping beside Gendry when they were two boys traveling to the Wall together. She turned toward Gendry to find him shifting about, pulling off his parka.

“Why are you taking that off?” she asked. “It’s still cold in here.”

“It’s wet,” he explained. “We’ll be warmer if we take off any wet clothing.”

Figuring that his reasoning was sound, she shucked off her heavy fur parka and quickly climbed under the furs. She felt Gendry do the same, and then it was completely dark.

“G-Gendry,” she stuttered, her teeth chattering. “I’m s-still cold,” she said, the cold clinging to her hands and the tips of her ears. His hands reached out blindly, bumping against her and then grabbing hold of her. He pulled her close, holding her against his chest and wrapping his arms around her. Immediately warmth coursed through her, igniting her blood and causing her to gasp. She could feel his breath against the top of her head, coming out harsh and ragged. She felt his hand reach between their torsos and grasp one of hers.

“Your fingers are like ice,” he whispered.

“I can hardly feel them,” she said against his chest. He wrapped them in his own freezing hands.

“We—” she began, remembering something Jon had told her long ago about being out in the cold at night.

“We need to share body heat,” she said.

She took his silence to mean hesitation as she couldn’t read his expression.

“It’s the only way we’ll stay warm, Gendry. And I am not freezing to death in some cave. And I’m not letting you freeze to death, either!” Her voice was frantic.

“We are not going to die,” he said firmly.

“We n-need to be b-bare from the waist up,” she instructed. Her damn teeth would not cease their chattering.

“Arya, you can’t—” he began, and she knew what he was about to say; he would blather on about the indecency of a half-naked lady and a bastard.

“Can you set aside your honor for one bloody moment and realize this is about not dying?!” she nearly yelled. She would have yelled if she weren’t so cold.

“It’s n-not like you’re going to see anything— it’s pitch black.”

She heard as well as felt him take a deep, steadying breath.

“Alright,” he conceded, then immediately pulled away from her. The air of the cave felt even colder with the absence of his body pressed to hers.

Arya quickly tore off her layers of clothing until she was completely naked from the waist up.

“Gendry!” she cried, the biting air hitting her bare skin and sucking the air from her lungs. She felt his arms around her, pulling her close to him and back under the furs.

The difference was night and day. She wrapped her arms around him, pressing her fingers into the warm skin of his back and trying to get closer. She had to suppress a whimper as the heat from his bare torso filled her own chest with a surge of warmth. She faintly registered the feeling of the hair on his chest pressing against her breasts. His hands moved over her back in an attempt to warm her even more.

She could feel his heart beating against her own chest, and the sensation was more intimate than any she had ever felt. Her breasts were pressed against him, her nipples taut, and she was sure she heard him moan low and soft.

“Better?” she asked.

“Yes,” he whispered.

She fell into a fitful sleep after that, waking every so often to pull herself closer to him.

They both awoke at daybreak, when the sun shined in through the cave opening, illuminating their sleeping quarters with harsh morning light.

Arya registered the feeling of his arms around her before feeling something hard against her stomach that she had not felt the night before. She realized very suddenly that it was _Gendry_ — or rather his cock— and the thought filled her with a rush of arousal and something like pride.

He stirred and then rolled away from her as quickly as possible, muttering “fucking hell” as he did.

He looked over at her then and his eyes widened, as if he had forgotten she was half-naked. She made no attempt to cover herself as his eyes slid over her chest and belly.

He was blushing furiously, but there was something else in his gaze that Arya figured to be desire. _He wants me_ , she thought, her eyes flickering to the bulge in his breeches. She scooted closer until she was nestled against his side.

Tentatively she reached her hand out and cupped him over the thin material covering his erection. His breathing was ragged, coming in quick bursts as he looked from her hand to her face, his own face more bewildered than ever. He covered her hand with his own. She thought he would pull her hand away but he kept it there, his eyes boring into her.

He moved his head so that it was nearer to hers. His mouth was nearly on hers when one of the horses whinnied, the sound carrying into the cave.

He broke away from her suddenly, pushing her hand away as he stood up and walked to the cave opening to check on the horses.

Hot shame slid over Arya, clinging to her gut and causing her cheeks to flush. She scrambled to put on her tunic, suddenly very conscious of her breasts. She was pulling on her heavy, and thankfully dry, parka when he appeared at the cave mouth, crouched down to call to her.

“Looks like we managed not to get snowed in,” he said.

“Good,” she said as she began rolling up the furs. She piled them in her arms and made her way out of the cave. He helped her load the horses, neither one daring to speak about what had happened.

 

**iv.**

Arya Stark’s return to Winterfell was not nearly as momentous as she had once imagined. Winterfell had been ravaged by the war, and very few people living there now had ever even seen the youngest Stark girl.

Arya preferred it that way. Really the only people who knew her were Jon and Sansa, and after much convincing of the castle guards to let Arya (and Gendry) in, the three Stark siblings had had a tearful reunion.

Gendry, though he told no one of whether or not he planned to stay, had been given a room in the castle. There were many empty rooms now, and Winterfell had far fewer servants than they had when Arya was a girl.

She knocked on his door one morning, nearly two weeks since their arrival, not giving much care to the fact that it was quite early. He pulled open the door and ushered her in.

Her eyes fell on the rucksack leaning against the wall, and then on the pile of folded clothing sitting on Gendry’s neatly made bed. The realization before her clicked in her head and she spoke before she had a chance to consider her words.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, her voice sharp. Her original reason for coming to his room so early— to ask him to go riding with her— was completely forgotten.

“Are you leaving?” she asked, struggling to keep her voice even.

He turned away from her to place something in his pack and heaved a sigh when he heard her question.

“You are, aren’t you?” she accused, not even trying to remain calm.

“Arya…” he said softly.

She wished she knew why it made her so angry to know that he was leaving her. She had even suspected it would happen; two weeks ago she had been prepared for him to tell her he was going back to the inn in White Harbor.

For the life of her she didn’t understand why it was different now, why it felt like he was ripping out a piece of her and taking it with him.

“I should have known,” she sneered, “that you would leave me again the first chance you got.”

She did not care if her words hurt him. She wanted him to feel the way she did.

He spun around to face her, and some small, dark part of her was glad to see that he was angry.

“And just what does that mean?” he asked, his voice rising.

“You did it all those years ago!” she said, clenching her fists at her sides. “When you decided to become a _knight_ ,” she spat out, as if the word had an offensive taste.

He looked furious now, but she didn’t stop.

“It was easy for you then and it’s just as easy for you now!” she yelled, feeling tears prickling at her eyes.

“Easy?” he shouted at her. If there had been any people in the nearby rooms he surely would have woken them.

“You ran away! I— I thought you were dead!” he roared. She had never seen him so mad, or so emotional about anything.

“For five years I thought you’d had your throat slit at the Twins, or that you’d been raped to death by the Bolton bastard!” He took a step closer to her.

“What part of that sounds _easy_ to you, milady?”

His use of the title made the anger flare within her once more, hot like flames in her belly.

“Being a knight was more important to you than being part of my pack!”

“I’m a bastard, Arya, I don’t have a fucking pack! I had nothing!” He gestured at the walls. “I didn’t have a bleeding castle; I didn’t even have a fucking name!”

She made to protest, but he shouted over her.

“I had _nothing_. You can’t understand that. And the Brotherhood gave me something.”

There were tears on her cheeks now, but she didn’t bother to wipe at her face.

“So that’s it then? There’s nothing here for you now?”

“Don’t,” he warned between clenched teeth.

“Say there’s nothing here for you!” she shouted at him, and put her hands up and shoved against his chest.

“Don’t act stupid,” he said, his voice low. He gripped her wrists in his hands, holding them roughly between their chests. “Don’t pretend that there ever _could_ be something here.”

She knew what they were both referring to.

“You’re a fool,” she hissed at him.

 She yanked her wrists from his grasp and moved quickly out of his reach. She reached the door and turned to look at him one last time.

“And _honor_ ,” she said, because this was about honor, about the oft spoken rule that bastards could not marry ladies and the other rule that a man and woman could never be together without the bonds of marriage.

“Honor is worth shit,” she spat, turning away and slamming the door behind her.

She rode her horse around the grounds for hours, only returning to the stables when her fingers were nearly frozen in her gloves and the tip of her nose was numb. Her tears had dried on her cheeks hours ago, but she still scrubbed her hands over her face.

She did not go to dinner that night, telling Sansa that it was her woman’s time and that she wasn’t feeling well. Sansa had pushed Arya’s hair away from her forehead and gave her a look that seemed wise beyond her years. She told Arya to come to her if she needed anything, and then bid her goodnight.

Arya lay awake for hours, staring up at the ceiling and wondering whether or not Gendry had already left. More tears collected in her eyes but she did not let them fall. She decided then that she would cry no more for her bastard knight.

When she finally found sleep it was plagued with dreams of killing and running and hiding. She dreamt that her hands and arms were covered in blood that she scrubbed at in the bath but would not wash away. The dream changed and she was dressed in a sleeveless gown, exposing her blood-stained arms to Gendry, who stood before her wearing only his breeches, like he had been dressed the nights they had slept together during their journey. He stared at her arms, a look of disgust on his face.

“You’re not Arya,” he said to her. “You are no one. And there is nothing for me here.”

Arya woke with a gasp, her body covered in a cold sweat and her blood pumping in her ears. She sat up and walked to the basin in her room, splashing her face with the cool water.

The urge to know whether or not he was still within the castle walls was suddenly overwhelming, like a crushing weight pressing on her chest.

She practically ran out of her room and down the hall, her bare feet slapping against the stone floor and carrying her to his room. She didn’t knock, knowing that if he was still there he’d be asleep.

She pushed the door open without a sound, hating that she knew how to do that. She closed it behind her just as silently, and turned to find him sleeping in his bed. She let out the breath she had been holding.

“Arya,” he said suddenly, and she nearly jumped. Apparently he hadn’t been sleeping. She turned to leave, not wanting to face him.

“Come here,” he said.

She did. When she reached his bedside he tugged on her arms until she was climbing into his bed. He turned down the furs, covering her with them when she was beside him. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close to his chest— the way he had held her in the cave.

Unspoken apologies filled the space between their bodies, and her voice was barely a whisper when she said, “don’t leave me.”

He clutched her tighter when he responded, “I can’t. I won’t.”

They stayed that way until the first light of dawn.

 

**v.**

Gendry took to working in the smithy, and for the next year and a half he made swords and armor for Jon’s men. He and Arya rode horses together in the wolfswood every opportunity they got, and she often ate dinner with him in his room at the back of his forge.

After a year and a half of being back at Winterfell Arya knew it was time for her to leave.

It started when Sansa married and moved all the way Dorne, and Arya knew she would see her sister maybe once every decade if she was lucky. When Sansa left Jon told Arya that he had several young men asking for her hand. She had laughed at him and told him he should know better.

When Jon married and brought his bride to Winterfell Arya knew for certain that it was no longer her home. If she stayed she knew she would eventually be married off and sent away. She didn’t blame her brother; she knew the way of the world.

Gendry knew the way of the world too, perhaps better than Arya did, and when she suggested they leave together he needed far less convincing than she had anticipated.

When she told Jon of their plans he gave her a sad yet understanding look.

“Father always said you had the wolf blood,” he had said. “I should’ve known I could never make a princess out of you, could never keep you within the walls of a castle.”

She cried when she said goodbye to Jon, her tears hot upon his neck. A week later she and Gendry were on a ship headed for Pentos.

“It’s strange,” she said to him, staring out at the retreating coast of Westeros, “I never thought that Winterfell could ever stop feeling like home. But even when I first came back it was… off, somehow.”

She turned to look at him, to look at the eyes that matched the color of the water that lapped at the sides of the ship.

“I had what I wanted— I had my name back, my enemies were dead, I was reunited with my family.” She moved her hand until it rested atop his on the wooden ledge of the side of the ship.

“But the longer I stayed the more I realized that the only thing I wanted anymore was you.”

He didn’t turn his gaze away from her, only turned his hand over so that it could clasp hers.

“Maybe home isn’t always a place,” she said, and she would have thought her own words cryptic if she had spoken them to anyone other than Gendry. They had a way of understanding the unspoken words between them.

His eyes searched her face for a moment before he leaned forward and kissed her.

It felt like she had waited for him for a lifetime.

* * *

 

It was odd to her that the first time they lay together was in Essos, a place that she had long associated with killing and trying to forget who she was.

But in Pentos she was not Faceless, was not no one. She was Arya— Arya, who loved Gendry. She had loved him for so long that one night, as they lay on the mattress of the inn room they had been staying at, she told him not to stop kissing her when he started. The familiar desire that filled her only intensified as he ran his rough hands over every smooth curve of her body, and she thought it would become unbearable if she couldn’t have him.

He gave her what she wanted, removing the layers of clothing between their bodies until they were bare before one another.

When he moved inside her she cried out, moaning as she pulled him closer, wanting to feel everything she could, wanting to feel nothing but love and warmth in her chest and his cock inside her.

The heat of their coupling coursed through her, tightening low in her belly, causing every muscle in her body to feel as though it were contracting and releasing as she unraveled beneath him on the simple straw mattress. She didn’t recognize the sounds she made, she only recognized the sound of his voice telling her he loved her when it was over, when she was lying limp in his arms.

“I’m going to build you a house here,” he said against the crown of her head, his fingers carding through her long hair.

She didn’t know what to say to that, so she just made a humming sound of approval. He laughed softly.

“A bastard knight and an unwed lady, living together.”

“It doesn’t matter here. No one cares that we aren’t married,” she explained.

“But would they let us marry?” he asked, his voice soft and hesitant.

She looked up at him, cupping one of his stubble-covered cheeks in her hand. She saw the hope in his eyes, raw and unashamed.

“I don’t see who would stop us,” she said.

She had never wanted to be a lady married to a lord in Westeros, but she thought she could be a woman married to a man in Pentos. She could be Arya married to Gendry.

He pulled the blanket over their naked bodies and held her tighter, pressing a kiss against her hair just before she fell asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you all think of this story: was it too long? Was the pacing alright? Was there too much sexual tension?  
> Who am I kidding, you can never have too much sexual tension.
> 
> -K


End file.
